


we've not yet lost all our graces

by pendules



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Models AU. <i>Harry didn't come to New York to be a model. The thought hadn't crossed his mind, to be honest. He comes to New York for the same reason everyone comes to New York - to realise some dream or to fail, to become famous or to give up eventually.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	we've not yet lost all our graces

**Author's Note:**

> For my lovely Linna. <3

Harry didn't come to New York to be a model. The thought hadn't crossed his mind, to be honest. He comes to New York for the same reason everyone comes to New York - to realise some dream or to fail, to become famous or to give up eventually.

It's looking pretty bleak after his band breaks up over something stupid and half of them go back to England and Ed starts doing his own thing and he's stuck working at Starbucks for the foreseeable future. He considers it, quitting, going home, but he wouldn't be able to look at anyone. Wouldn't be able to look at himself. So, he sticks it out, puts up flyers: _vocalist/guitarist looking for a band_ which is the loneliest, most pathetic thing he's ever seen. But it fits, because this is the loneliest and most pathetic he's ever felt.

He's basically hit rock-bottom and it's cold and he's fucking miserable and he's about to call his mum and ask for money or a ticket. One or the other. He's weighing them in his brain. 

Only then some random guy comes up to him, on the fucking street, and tells him he has a good face and he wears a coat well and he should call this number. And that's it; he's gone, leaving Harry staring at the card for a modelling agency he'd placed in his hand.

*

He meets Louis first. He's just starting out too. He has a couple clients, all new to the business, and he's just eager to have Harry _there_ even though Harry knows nothing about any of this. 

"God, you're so pale," he scolds.

"It's _winter_."

"That's no excuse. Pale equals dead and lifeless. People don't want to see that. _Especially_ in the dead of winter. Put some colour on his cheeks," he tells the makeup artist.

So, Harry's in hair and makeup for an hour and he doesn't even want to know what they've put on his face. It goes good though. He doesn't fall flat on his face at least. Louis looks pleased. The photographer kind of yells a lot and he doesn't understand half of what he's trying to tell him but he gets what he needs. The pictures don't look bad anyway. Louis is kind of a genius at putting clothes together that he'd never think of in a million years It looks like it could be in a real catalogue or something. Which is pretty crazy.

He goes home and spends about three hours trying to get all the makeup off.

*

He meets Zayn on his third shoot. He's only been in the city for a couple months but he's already generating buzz. Louis's his stylist too (he calls him his favourite; _have you seen that bone structure? he's going to make me_ famous) and apparently they've become good friends. Harry's still a bit intimidated by the industry but he knows Louis and Zayn are good people. They're all in the same boat now anyway. Before meeting them, he'd sort of just thought of this as another job where he'd just be another anonymous face, he'd do his time and then go back to his tiny apartment where he'd mess around with his guitar or just catch up on Breaking Bad. But it's nice, knowing he's not alone for the first time in a long time.

"Hey, you wanna go for a drink?" Louis calls across the dressing room when they're finished.

"Yeah, okay."

*

It's not just a drink. It's a loud, pulsing, claustrophobic club. Louis's dancing with some really tall guy with tattoos. Zayn sits with him by the bar, looking just as uncomfortable as he feels. 

"Why are we even here?" he half-shouts.

"Louis's just...you know."

"Yeah." Harry's not really one for the rockstar life, even though he was aspiring towards it once. Maybe he's lost the desire. Maybe it's hard to enjoy it when you know how so many people want it but never will have it. It just feels empty now. Because yeah, they work hard, Zayn and Louis and himself, but it's not any different from the kid down the street who has his old job at Starbucks now.

"How'd you even get into this?" Zayn asks, like he's been wanting to for a while.

"I'm honestly still not sure. What about you?" And it's a useless question. With that face, people have probably been telling him he could be a model his whole life.

"I went to art school for a semester. It wasn't awful or anything but I just needed a change of scenery." Harry feels there's something else he's not letting him know. But he won't push anything; he's only now met him.

"I think I just needed a _change_ ," Harry says, sipping his drink.

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean."

*

It's weird, telling people about it. His mother had seemed suspicious on the phone, maybe confused that people would actually give him their expensive clothes to wear and then expect to sell them afterwards. He'd sent her some pictures and she'd just said, "Oh, wow," so maybe that's a good sign though. Gemma sticks pictures of him in ridiculous outfits all over her dorm (but she said that lots of girls, and guys, said he was hot anyway so he'll take it as a win). Ed says he's sorry about the band (again) but he's happy for him. Nick just laughs at him a lot and calls him a primadonna. Which, really, ironic much?

It's not bad though. He actually has extra cash now to do things in the city he couldn't before and he goes to nice restaurants with Louis and Zayn and they even get invited to parties where, if they're lucky, they'll catch sight of some A-listers making their way to the VIP area. He sees Rod Stewart once which is pretty cool but the rest don't interest him. Socialites and teen queens and reality TV stars.

He doesn't see the appeal of fame anymore. Or maybe he never really did.

Zayn gets it too, he can tell. Modelling's just another kind of art to him. Like Harry's music is to him. And sharing the art is good but sharing too much of anything else is not what they're here for. They're not that interesting anyway. Maybe the people who truly deserve that spotlight are the ones who will never have it.

*

Niall does his first shoot for a serious magazine. And he's totally different from any other photographer he's ever worked with. He's wearing a white wife-beater and baggy jeans and he keeps saying, "Perfect. That's fucking perfect, mate," in his Irish accent and Harry's less tense than he's ever been on a shoot and by the end, everyone's laughing about God knows what and Niall just says, "Well, I'm fucking starving. Who's coming to McDonald's?"

*

"So you're working with Louis?" he asks, when he's sitting opposite Harry in the plastic booth, chewing on a Chicken McNugget.

"Yeah."

"He's mental, isn't he? Fucking brilliant, of course. But mental." And he laughs that amazing, full-bodied laugh of his that is ridiculously contagious.

"How long you've been doing this?"

"What, editorials? Less than a year. I went to photography school, dreamt of what everyone dreams of, you know, the real deal, National Geographic, TIME magazine, whatever, but here I am." He shrugs. "Could be worse."

And that's it, really, this whole thing summed up in three words by probably the wisest person Harry's ever met.

*

Zayn seems to love Niall more than Harry thought he could love anything. He literally stares at him like he's the centre of the universe. Even when he starts talking about his girlfriend who's a singer and probably as beautiful and full of sunshine as he is. So their Friday nights go from them watching Louis pick up hot guys to them watching Louis pick up hot guys and Niall and Ellie make out like horny teenagers.

Harry doesn't get it, why Zayn doesn't pick up girls or guys, or whatever, when he looks like _that_ and he's relatively well-known and well-groomed and well-dressed (mostly in stuff 'borrowed' from shoots) and he's nice to talk to, he actually listens, unlike so many people, and he's insightful and considerate and genuinely cares about stupid stuff like how he's sad he's not around while his mum is planning her wedding and how there's no hot water in his building _again_.

"I really need to move out," he sighs. "Mostly I'm just too lazy to pack up all my shit."

"I've been crashing with my friend since I got here," Zayn says, and it's the first time he's volunteered personal information. "So I know what that's like."

"Yeah."

"Hey, what if we help each other move out? We can even drag those two into it," he says gesturing to the other side of the bar where Louis and Niall supposedly are.

"Yeah, but I still need to actually look for a place."

"Me too."

"Hey, what if we -" He stops. Because he's known Zayn for about six months and he's seen him mostly naked and they've sat at bars all over the city dozens of times and ordered dozens of drinks and he knows Zayn, he does, but he still doesn't. Not really. Because Zayn isn't simple. He's not like Niall who shows you all his cards on the first day, or not like Louis who puts up this exterior of indifference that's so transparent. He cares, obviously and tangibly, but doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve either. He maintains a comfortable distance but still shows you that he's right there if you need him. Zayn is difficult to figure out and yet he's reliable at the same time. So maybe he knows enough. Maybe this is exactly what he needs.

"What if we get a place together?"

*

The place is kind of amazing and he'd never be able to afford it alone. The rec room is insane and Niall spends about half of the time he's not working sprawled on their huge, ridiculously comfortable couch. The difference between here and his old place is so stark. This place feels like an actual home, because he wakes up to coffee brewing (and Zayn's definitely not a morning person, so he almost wonders if he does it especially for him), and his sheets smell like the fabric softener his mum uses and he's finally hung up his posters that couldn't all fit on the walls before and the kitchen is warm and cozy and the living room is overflowing with records and books and the pictures Niall takes when he's around (Zayn swears they'll be worth millions someday and saves all) and they've split the third bedroom into halves: one for Harry's guitars and the other for Zayn's art.

*

Zayn becomes the face of a huge brand. It's weird seeing him like this - usually he's calm, collected, perfect. And it's not about the bigwigs in the industry; it's about people he knows back home, his parents, his sisters, his friends. He's scared about how they'll react because he basically blows up overnight and Louis is yelling at anyone who will listen about how he's going to be _so fucking rich_ , he's going to be _styling the stars, the real stars, and not these wannabes._

"Hey, you okay?" he says when they're finally alone, in their usual corner of the bar.

"I just - I didn't think it'd happen this quickly. Or ever, really."

"Is it a good or a bad thing?" It's a question he asks a lot with Zayn, because he's not black and white with his emotions most of the time. Harry likes to clarify things, to straighten them out and put them in nice boxes with bows on top.

"Good," he says, nodding firmly.

"Okay," Harry says and clinks their glasses together.

*

He wakes up and something's different. His sheets smell different. Because there's someone else in them. And coffee's brewing and fuck, he hasn't brought anyone home in the four months he's been living with Zayn and Zayn obviously hasn't either and it shouldn't be weird, but it kind of is for some reason. Even weirder than the fact that this is the first time he's gotten laid in over a year.

Zayn looks up when he hears footsteps. 

"Hey, made you coffee -" He stops mid-sentence when he realises. And he's wearing one of Harry's old band t-shirts and it's so fucking stupid. "Oh."

"Zayn, this is Jon." And it's shouldn't be so awkward. Zayn's not his mum or anything.

"Hey," Jon says, and he has a nice smile, he does, maybe that's what it was. Harry's still trying to remember.

"Hey," Zayn says, pretty abruptly, or maybe he's imagining it. "I should - um, get out of your way."

Harry doesn't even have time to say, "Wait," before he's already slipped out of the kitchen and headed back to his room. Fuck.

"You want breakfast?" he asks Jon.

"I don't know if I'm the one you should be having breakfast with," he says, and it's almost like he feels sorry for him. And _what_? What the fuck does _Jon_ know anyway, if that's even his real name?

"You can find your way out, right?" he says, and that's bitter, he knows, but he's allowed to be right now, he thinks.

He puts a coat on and goes for a walk.

*

"What's up with Zayn?" he says.

"What did he do?"

"Nothing. He didn't do anything."

"So, you mean in general?" Louis already sounds tired of this conversation.

"Yeah."

"I don't know, man, you have to ask him."

"But you _know_?"

"I know that you're annoying the fuck out of me right now with your clueless act."

"Act? What act?"

"Your whole naive, I'm-only-here-by-accident thing. It's gotten old."

"I feel like I've lost this conversation."

"Zayn's been through a lot of shit. We all have. You're not the only one."

"Is that - is that a _clue_?"

"How do you even function?"

*

Zayn's drinking alone and neither of them have ever stooped that low.

"Why don't you ever date?" he asks because he's fed up of having to decrypt Zayn.

"Was that what it was - a _date_?"

"This isn't about _me_ -"

"Isn't it? You feel guilty for some reason and you don't know why?" And fucking Zayn, always knowing exactly what he's thinking.

"Just - tell me, please. Whatever it is, I'm here. You know that." And they've never promised anything to each other, not in words at least, but it's always been there. 

He takes a long drink, as if to steady himself before he starts talking.

"I proposed to her and then it just went to fucking shit. She didn't cheat or anything. She just told me one day that she couldn't picture it - that thinking about being with me twenty years from now was the scariest thing she could imagine. What do you do when the love of your life says that to you? I just left everything. I basically came off the plane with the clothes on my back." He laughs softly. "Committing to a new city, a new house with new things in it, it just makes it feel real. That's why I put it off so long." And Harry knows what that's like, always wondering if you'll have to leave it all behind and go back. Back to your old life full of reminders of your failure.

"But it was always real. I can't - I can't go back. There's nothing there. She called me a couple days ago, said she saw my face on a bus. And you know what the really fucked-up part is? It doesn't make me feel anything. I don't miss her. It doesn't feel like revenge or anything. There's just _nothing_."

"I think that means it's over." Harry's obviously never had anything like that happen to him, but he's left enough people behind, had enough people leave him. He knows that it stops hurting, that you just get numb after a while, that it hollows you out, and maybe that's worse but it's the only way it can get better.

"Yeah, yeah."

*

It pretty much goes back to normal after that. Zayn doesn't bring anyone home or anything but he flirts with people the next few times they go out and then they're at this event and it's the first one where they're not on the outside looking in at the celebrities and the hottest people in the fashion industry - they _belong_ now, they're in the upper echelon too. Mostly because of Zayn, obviously. But it's still pretty mental, for all of them, and especially Harry, considering a year ago he was about to go back to Holmes Chapel and move in with his mum and step-dad again. Louis keeps gaping really obviously at actresses like he's picturing exactly what he'd dress them in if he's ever given the chance. Niall gets pretty overwhelmed by all the gourmet hors d'oeuvres (and it's the first time Harry's _ever_ seen him overwhelmed by food).

Zayn looks - really comfortable, probably the first time he ever has been at one of these things. He looks _happy_. And Harry's happy for him too. But there's - there's something off, something wrong, something's changed. Because Zayn's been so open with him and he feels like he hasn't quite returned the favour. Zayn's always been able to read him pretty easily, he knows that, even if he's never brought it up, even if he knows how to give him his space, his privacy. But it's different now - he wants to _tell_ him. He wants him to know things he's never said to anyone, because he was too scared or because everyone else is gone.

He finds him smoking on the balcony, and they're at the fucking penthouse so the cityscape is kind of amazing, millions and millions of lights in the distance.

"Aren't you afraid of heights?" he jokes.

"If I fall, you'll save me," he says, and his smile is weird - almost like he's serious about that.

"I don't know if you should be that confident, mate," he sighs, leaning against the railing now, wind blowing his hair into his eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asks casually.

"I mean - I'm a mess. I can't even save myself."

"I don't know, I think you're doing all right." And he believes that, he really does. Zayn doesn't ever say things if he doesn't mean them.

"Am I?"

"Do you really hate it that much?" And there he goes again, reading his mind. Harry would hate that if it wasn't Zayn.

"Do _you_?" he counters, feeling tired. Tired of other people telling him how he feels about his own life.

"It's not me - the person they see on billboards or in storefronts or whatever. It's someone else. It looks like me, but it's not _me_."

Harry kind of wants to ask, _So if that's not you, who is?_

"I think I _want_ people to really see me. That's why I wanted to get my music out there. That's why I do it."

Zayn nods, and he knows, of course. Harry sees more of Zayn in his art than he ever could on a magazine cover.

"It's not too bad, though, is it?" And Harry thinks about what he has now - he has Zayn, and Louis and Niall, and he has possibilities that he could never have dreamed of before.

"Yeah," he says, looking over at him. "It's not too bad."

*

He's getting his hair cut when he sees the fucking magazine. The headline _Malik & Styles: shacking up?_ with a picture of Zayn from yesterday wearing one of his plaid shirts juxtaposed with a picture of himself wearing it a month ago. The article goes on to present all the 'evidence' of their torrid affair from the apartment to pictures of them leaving a restaurant (casually omitting the fact that they were with five friends) to the time Zayn took him to see his favourite exhibit (and okay, they were alone then but it was just a friendly excursion, obviously).

And he didn't even know they knew his name. He's been in the tabloids before, photographed with Zayn, but he was just an unnamed friend those times. This is something else. There's a good chance his mother is going to see this. And fuck, this is everything he never wanted.

*

He finds him in the spare room, finishing up a painting.

"You need to start buying your own clothes," he says impatiently.

"What?" he says, looking up at him from the canvas. There's a fleck of blue paint on his cheek and he has the mad urge to reach out and wipe it off.

"It's in the papers. They think we're - well, they think we're -"

"What?" he asks again.

"They think we're in a relationship."

"Did they say that?"

"I don't know, they think we're shacking up."

"Wait, what does that even _mean_ exactly?"

"They think we're _fucking_ , okay," and then he finally starts to breathe.

Zayn just breaks out into a smile. "It's a tabloid, Harry. They print garbage like that all the time. No one believes it. And everyone forgets about it."

"It's not _garbage_ ," he bursts out without thinking. And oh. _Fuck._

"It's not?" he says, raising an eyebrow, looking wary.

"No - I mean, it _is_. It's not true, obviously. But - I mean, it's not like -"

"It's not like what?"

"It's not like it's so ridiculous that -"

"That _what_?"

"That what they're insinuating could be true -"

"Do you _want_ it to be true?" And then they both freeze. Harry just stares at him, his eyes bright and expectant, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with holes in it, mostly covered in paint and this is the real Zayn, the one he's been looking for. Earnest and kind and so much more beautiful inside than most people will ever see.

"Yeah," he says, so quietly. And he's dropping his head now, scared to look at him. But then Zayn is tilting his chin back up and suddenly standing so close to him. "Hey," he says before closing the remaining distance.

His lips are so soft and when his stubble rubs against Harry's face, it's a pleasant sensation. Their noses bump and Harry giggles a little into his mouth and then they're pulling away, but not too much, Harry can still feel Zayn's breath on his cheek.

"I'm getting paint on you," he says, blinking at him.

"I don't care," he says and kisses him again.

*

They take Louis out for his birthday, to thank him for everything he's done for them (which Louis obviously translates into _your entire careers, you mean_ ). Zayn's wearing his coat and he whispers in his ear, "You should keep it. It looks good on you," before taking his hand and leading him down the street.

They meet up with one of Zayn's old friends who's new in town and has only just got signed to an agency.

And Louis is already making a beeline to some guy across the club but he just stops in his tracks when he sees Liam.

"Someone please introduce me to this beautiful creature."

Liam looks kind of confused and terrified at the same time, like _who? me?_ It's kind of ridiculously adorable and Louis seems to think so too.

"Dance with me," he says, eyes bright, and it's not a question. "It's my birthday." He's honestly worse than a petulant child.

"Oh, okay, I - happy birthday -" and then Louis is dragging him into the crowd. 

"Well, that's the last we'll ever see of poor Liam," Niall says, looking morose for a second but obviously getting over it, taking a swig of beer.

"What am I going to tell his mother?" Zayn laments.

Everyone disappears eventually, to dance or find a quiet place to snog, leaving them alone at the bar once again.

"Hey," Harry says, smiling across at him. "How about you go home with me tonight?"

"I'd love to," Zayn replies, returning his smile.


End file.
